Yesterday, my friend sent me a box of Red Fuji apples. Immediately after the first bite, I was
surprised by the sweetness and brittleness of the beautiful red fruit, and I started to wonder
how the farmers grow these kinds of apples. So I searched on the Internet. I concluded from
an article that the essential tips in apple farming are:
1. Dry, low-temperature environment
2. Punctual snowfall
3. Abundant sunlight
4. Acid soil
5. Minor climate change
The article also mentions that apple farmers are now facing problems due to climate change.
Typically, due to the extensive increase in temperature and decrease in snowfall, apple
farmers in India were forced further into the Himalayas to grow their crops. “There is a
disturbance in the cycle; what was normal [weather], appropriate for apples, is not there.”
An Indian farmer admitted in an interview. He lost a fifth of his harvest to unanticipated hail
in April. A May drought damaged his crops two years before that.“We’ll have to see what
happens in spring,” says the farmer.
Another factor that I found holds farmers back is the unfavourable business environment.
Indian farmers were rarely educated; they lacked business knowledge. Many of them do not
have access to the market. They cannot sell the products directly to the consumers, so the
most commonly used practice is to sell their products to big companies at a low price, and
then the company will sell them to the consumers for profit. Consequently, it is hard for
farmers to sustain their farming business and hence still remain below the poverty line.
We must all take time out and think about what can we as consumers do to help or
improve these apple farmers’ conditions.
- Samantha
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